Swiss Bank to share info on Indian account holders from September 2019

In a move that could help fight black money in India, sources confirmed that the central government will start receiving automatic financial information on the Indian account holders in Swiss Bank from September 2019. Accordingly, a declaration for the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) has been signed between the two nations on Tuesday.

“An agreement has been signed between the Deputy Chief of the mission of Swiss embassy in India, Gilles Roduit and Chairman of CBDT, Mr.Sushil Chandra. As a result, the government will start receiving financial data of the Indian account holders in Swiss Bank from September 2019”, the statement from the Finance Ministry said.

The Union Finance ministry statement said that fighting against the Black money was the main agenda of the Central government.

The negotiations for the automatic exchange of information has officially started when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann, at Geneva. The Prime Minister has reportedly discussed over an early agreement to combat tax evasion. The discussion between the top leaders followed an official meeting between the revenue secretaries of the two nations, who agreed to move towards the implementation of AEOI.

The move came as a relief to the Central government, which has been criticized heavily for failing to bring back the black money stashed in foreign countries since demonetization. However, a deeper look into the agreement does not look satisfactory. It must be noted that the Swiss Bank will only share details of the account holders from September 2019. This indirectly gives time for the existing account holders to move to other safe heavens within the given time.